Working Time in Australia

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

"The daily cycle [the physical day with its alternation of darkness and light] is the foundation of the rhythm of life in all human communities."

(Donaldson, 1996:7)

The International Labour Organization (ILO) says that “More than one-fifth of the global workforce spends more than 48 hours a week at work, with many workers in the poorest countries forced to opt for long hours given their meagre wages” (Toronto Star 2007, p. B03). In details, this is “some 614.2 million workers” or about 22% of the entire global labour force. Those in the service sector such as wholesale, retail and catering are particularly affected, the ILO said in a report. Meanwhile, a report written by Pollard (2007) in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper stated that “Australians were increasingly working non-standard hours including very long hours, unsocial hours and very short or unpredictable hours” (p. 3). This is according to the Benchmarks for Work and Family Policies report taken from the latest Australian and international research. With these facts, it could be claimed that various development had occurred in the working time of most Australian labour workers.

The national as well as international workplace is characterized by various trends that affect its traditional composition wherein contemporary elements of industrialization like technological development and globalisation takes into further effect. Today, as modern societies strive for economic stability and growth, the human labour forces are taken into account as their involvement plays a significant role in nation-building particularly in relation to economy. On the case of Australia, working conditions have significant changes especially on the past decade. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned quotations in connection with the working time in Australia in the past decades.

Working Time

Working time practically refers to the number of time in which an employee or any member of workforce works. It is the time and person spends at compensated industrial employment. According to Anxo and colleagues (2004, p. 1), the period in which workers spend created issues at the heart of political and social debates since the Industrial Revolution. The focus of the debate changes as time passed by. After the First World War, a number of legislative measures were introduced in order to regulate working time particularly the goal of an 8-hour working day, in which the main objective of these initial laws on working time was to combat the adverse effects of long working days on employees' mental and physical health in order to diminish the high numbers of industrial accidents and to standardize employers' practices as regards working time (Anxo et al 2004). During the period of economic prosperity following the Second World War, as working conditions began to improve and incomes started to grow, there was a change in the focus of the debate on working time. In particular, the concerns about working time and health widened to include more general welfare issues, including the distribution and trade-off of productivity gains and economic growth between increased income and/or leisure. In the context of full employment and sustained growth, most industrialized countries experienced a substantial reduction of actual working time.

On the case of Australia, as among the world’s most industrialized countries, Australians between the periods of 1974 up to 1997 has no marked changes that occurred in their average amount of time spent at work. Workers at “prime working age” which includes any person at the ages between 25 and 54 record a stable average working between 27 and 28 hours per week. Bittman and Rice (2002) reported that this unchanging average somewhat created a notable redistribution of work between men and women. According to them, the average time spent at work by single prime working-age Australian men fell from 45 to 36 hours per week, while the average time spent at work by prime working-age Australian women rose from 12 to 19 hours per week. This statistics are between the periods of 1974 and 1997 wherein significant decrease among men population and increase in women population is noted. In the period leading up to 1997, the total time an Australian worker spent at work outside the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays had increased (Bittman & Rice 2002, p. 5-25).

Discussion

Working time in Australian setting is claimed to be stagnant in terms of the average working time per day and in week span. However, there are several factors that occurred that may serve as important indicators of the changing aspects of national or even international employment. Among these changes are the various techniques in the regulation of working time and another is the increase of women in the employment sector.

Techniques in the Regulation of Working Time

The gap between individuals' working time preferences and their actual working hours highlighted by recent research has always been one of the themes underlying policy approaches towards the regulation of working time (McCann 2004, p. 10). Historically, the late twentieth-century trends in working time regulation represented a break from a history of progressive reduction of weekly working hours, which began in the nineteenth century and was realized through the imposition of limits on normal hours and pay premia additions for work during 'unsocial' hours (evenings, nights and weekends) (Bosch et al 1994; Fagan & Lallement 2000; Supiot 2001 cited in McCann 2004, p. 10). The labour movement's stipulation for the 8-hour working day as embodied in the ILO's first Convention in 1919 was gradually translated into the emergence of 'standard' working hours which, although the precise norm varied, were common to all industrialized countries by the 1960s (Bosch 1999; Fagan & Lallement 2000). Initiatives, while potentially beneficial, raise concerns for the future of working time regulation that are centred around consideration of the suitable communication and balance between regulatory techniques.

There are several countries that have gone all the way through changes in the techniques used for regulating working time including Australia and the UK as among the good examples but seemingly moving in different directions (McCann 2005, p. 37-38). In the late 1980s, Australia had a working hours distribution pattern similar to those in countries with strong legislative roles (i.e. a sharp peak at 40 hours per week) but by year 2000, the distribution had flattened and became similar to that of the UK (McCann 2004). This result is mainly attributed to the fact that there are significant increase in the incidence of both long hours and short hours. The close association between this dramatic change and the institutional changes is illustrated by the finding that the increasing number of enterprise and individual agreements under the new legislation, the Workplace Relations Act of 1996, tended to provide for longer working hours (Peetz 2001).

According to Anxo (2004), “in countries with relatively weak labour market regulation (like Australia, the UK and the USA), working time is essentially determined through enterprise-based collective agreements, employment contracts and market forces” (p. 63). For this reason, the profile of the working time distribution in a given country is partly a reflection of the relative strength and degree of articulation of the various levels of regulation, which in turn are intimately related to the type of industrial relations regime, the regulatory role of the state in the labour market, and the degree of centralization and coordination of the bargaining process in the country. With the developing trends in the Australian labour sector, it is always indicated that all changes must be directed to the protection of employee’s welfare and well-being. The working time as under cordon by different national policies and regulations tend to limit the productivity of every worker as there is an impression that working time is either under or over represented. In Australian setting, working time in relation to the WorkChoices that caters to employment sectors must adhere to the very essence of ILO statement of ‘standard’ working hours.

Women in the Workforce: the Increasing Women Power

As reported by Bittman and Rice (2002) in their study, women already had broken the gender barrier when it comes to employment in any industry. The traditional role of women in the society as mother and wife is another situational reason on why they consists lower employment positions. In some instances, their familial responsibilities serve as limitation for their professional growth. Generally, because women are expected to be full-time mother and wife, they are persuaded to work in part-time jobs due to some other responsibilities such as domestic and the like (Hunter et al 1993). Hakim (1995) asserts that part-time works are expected to be chosen voluntarily by a significant number of women because they have other responsibilities in their life. This is another theory on why women held senior managerial position in an organization. However, some experts challenge and argue Hakim’s view. Women’s choice, according to them is constrained by the lack of alternatives and weak bargaining position because they have to accommodate domestic responsibility (Ginn et al 1996).

Hakim’s belief is considered as one of the main reasons on why few women are actively engaged in the higher stages of management. But the circumstances provided by the traditional roles of women that are preexisting in the society also support the extreme opposite side. In hospitality management for example, women are relatively better in terms of management regardless of the roles they play particularly in the personnel and employee relations. But still, it seems easy for women to gain employment at the lower to middle levels of the organization but very difficult for them to reach upper and senior management positions. Romaine (1999) argues that our biological sex is determined at birth by factors beyond our control, yet being born male or female is probably the most important feature of our lives. In connection, the role of human resource management (HRM) must emerge as the tool for the development of policies and practices equalize rather than challenge gender inequality. It must be noted that HRM’s role in the emergence of women workers is supported by important factors such as abilities, skills, and management functions present within the person.

In Australian setting, the increasing number of women workers in terms of there working time is a manifestation of change. It may not be directly linked with the considered stagnant trend in Australian working time but this fact indicates the need to evaluate existing policies on working time particularly on women. Equal opportunity policies are voluntary and depend on a business case argument rather than being based on a social case. In application, the HR manager must consider circumstances when women can break through the 'glass ceiling' and achieve senior management positions (Maxwell 1997; Knutson & Schmidgall 1999). Hence, the economic benefits of equal opportunities need to be articulated at a level beyond the organization, but may not produce desirable outcomes.

Synthesis

The above quotations are still relevant in relation to the working time of Australians. Time is the common denominator that specifies how long will a person work in accordance to the laws of the land as well as the capability of his/her physical being. More often than not, people are said to be working very hard all their lives in order to gain or acquire what they aspire in life placing their physical body at risk. The irony is that, they tend to forget that time in its very essence must be enjoyed and not to be restricted in economic undertakings. In the employment sector, the working time specifies how much an employee will have at hand on his/her pay slip on payday. The development of working time laws, policies and regulations as well as the changes in women are situations that necessitate the urgent call for worldwide consideration of the international working conditions. In this case, the role of human resource management is indispensable. In history, people work longer than expected. Then, when they learned about ‘standard’ working time, they hold on to this. At present, it is history repeating itself as ILO reports “More than one-fifth of the global workforce spends more than 48 hours a week at work”. The question is: when will workers know that enough is enough?

References

Anxo, D 2004, “Working time patterns among industrialized countries: A household perspective,” in J. C. Messenger (ed) Working Time and Workers' Preferences in Industrialized Countries: Finding the Balance, Routledge, New York.

Anxo, D, Fagan, C, McCann, D, Lee, S, and Messenger, JC 2004, “Working time in industrialized countries,” in J. C. Messenger (ed) Working Time and Workers' Preferences in Industrialized Countries: Finding the Balance, Routledge, New York.

Bittman, M and Rice, JM 2002, “The spectre of overwork: An analysis of trends between 1974 and 1997 using Australian time-use diaries,” Labour and Industry, vol. 12, no. 3: pp. 5–25.

Bosch, G 1999, “Working time: tendencies and emerging issues,” International Labour Review, vol. 138, no. 2: pp. 131-49.

Bosch, G, Dawkins, P, and Michon, F 1994, Times are Changing: Working Time in 14 Industrialised Countries, Institute for International Labour Studies, Geneva.

Fagan, C and Lallement, M 2000, “Working time, social integration and transitional labour markets,” in J. O'Reilly, I. Cebrián and M. Lallement (eds) Working-Time Changes: Social Integration through Transitional Labour Markets, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham.

Ginn, J, Arber, S, Brannen, J, Dale, A, Dex, S, Elias, P, Moss, P, Pahl, J, Roberts, C & Rubery, J 1996, “Feminist fallacies: a reply to Hakim on women's employment,” British Journal of Sociology, vol. 47, no. 1: pp. 167-73.

Hakim, C 1995, “Five feminist myths about women's employment,” British Journal of Sociology, vol. 46, no. 3: pp. 429-55.

Hunter, L, McGregor, A, MacInnes, J & Sproull, A 1993, “The "flexible firm": strategy and segmentation,” British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 31, no. 3: pp. 383-407.

Knutson, BJ & Schmidgall, RS 1999, “Dimensions of the glass ceiling in the hospitality industry,” Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 6: pp. 64-75.

Maxwell, GA 1997, “Hotel general management: views from above the glass ceiling,” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 9, nos. 5/6: pp. 230-5.

McCann, D 2004, “Regulating working time needs and preferences,” J. C. Messenger (ed) Working Time and Workers' Preferences in Industrialized Countries: Finding the Balance, Routledge, New York.

Peetz, D 2001, Individual Contracts, Collective Bargaining, Wages and Power, Discussion Paper No. 437, Centre for Economic Policy Research, London.

Pollard, R 2007, “Call for curbs on unsocial work hours,” The Sydney Morning Herald, September 07, p. 3.

Romaine, S 1999, Communicating Gender, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Mahwah, NJ.

Supiot, A 1996, “On-the-job time: time for agreement,” International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations, vol. 2, no. 3: pp. 195-211.

Toronto Star 2007, “One-fifth of workers toil over 48 hour weeks,” Toronto Star (Canada), August 06, p. B03.